


Line of Sight

by anneapocalypse



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Background Relationships, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Hostage Situations, Implied/Referenced Character Death, RvB Angst War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-09 23:22:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11115051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse
Summary: THIS FIC CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR SEASON 15 THROUGH EPISODE 10.Agent Illinois knows he's being hunted, and he intends to strike first.Written for the RvB Angst War, prompted by tuckerfuckingdidit.





	Line of Sight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tuckerfuckingdidit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuckerfuckingdidit/gifts).



> No onscreen deaths, but hints of potential deaths. See the endnotes for details, and for the background pairing.

 

The shot comes out of nowhere.

Carolina feels a sickening sense of _deja vu_ , adrenaline kicking in like it hasn’t since Chorus. In an instant the beach becomes a battlefield, every wall and tree and scrub brush becoming cover for the sniper who’s just dropped Wash in the sand beside her.

They just walked out in plain view, didn’t sweep the area, didn’t establish a perimeter, she was so _stupid—_

A choked sound comes from Wash’s throat, over the radio, harsh in her ears.

She has her sidearm drawn, scanning frantically for hostiles as she drops to one knee, ready to spring up at the first sight of her enemy but she has to help Wash—

Straight through the breastplate. Hell. Must’ve been armor-piercing. Wash doesn’t have an overshield wouldn’t have had it up if he did—

she’s so _stupid._

There’s the perch. Should’ve seen it from a mile away. An old lifeguard stand, most of the paint worn off revealing gray-weathered wood, and someone crouched at the top with her in their sights—

The shooter is marked as friendly on her HUD. Not unknown, _friendly_. And the color—

Carolina swallows down the sick panic in her throat and opens the old TEAMCOM channel.

“Friendlies! Cease fire, repeat, _cease fire._ This is Agent Carolina of the former Project Freelancer, my partner is Agent Washington, _stand down._ ”

The voice that comes over TEAMCOM is familiar.

“I know who the fuck you are. Toss your weapons out of reach. His too. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

“You _shot Wash—_ ”

“I said _drop your fucking weapons!”_

“Okay, okay.” Carolina hucks her pistol into the sand, wincing. Rifle too. Wash’s rifle is on his back. She grabs his sidearm off his hip instead, throws that, reaches for the biofoam slot.

“His rifle too.”

“I can’t get to it without moving him, and I have to treat the gunshot wound or he'll _bleed out_. Let me do that, and then you shoot me if you want to.”

There’s no reply, which Carolina takes as an affirmative.

She yanks the canister out of its slot and pops the emergency release on his breastplate. The undersuit is soaked with blood around the entry wound, and it’s gotta be a lot worse around back. Red is seeping quickly through the sand underneath him and from the vitals warnings flashing on her HUD, she knows he’s losing blood fast.

Carolina jams the nozzle unceremoniously into the wound and sprays and Wash screams, twitching in agony as the foam fills up the cavity. It’ll burn real bad for the first minute, then go numb. You learn to appreciate the pain response, tells you your buddy’s still with you, but that doesn’t make it any easier to hear.

“Hang in there, Wash,” she says quietly over their private channel. “I’m gonna get us out of here.”

“S’okay, boss,” Wash wheezes back, and fuck, the relief that comes over her at hearing him say words nearly collapses her in the sand beside him. “A’ready got my straw.”

“That’s the spirit,” she says, trying not to choke up.

With the wound closed and the blood loss stanched, at least for now, she pulls Wash’s battle rifle out from under him, tosses it in the pile with the rest of the weapons. Wonders if she can gamble on old Illinois having forgotten about their standard-issue combat knives.

“I said _all_ your weapons!”

Probably not.

Carolina sighs, chucks her M11 and Wash’s into the pile. “Anything else?”

“Now I want you to stand up and step away from the weapons. Go stand by the shack over there and—”

“I’m not leaving him.”

“I can start shooting again anytime, Agent.”

“You have the high ground,” Carolina snaps. “If you wanted us both dead, you could’ve killed me already. You want to know why we’re here. I want to know what has you shooting ex-Freelancers on sight. You can take our weapons. You can restrain me. You can interrogate me. I don’t care. But _I am not leaving Wash behind.”_

There’s a long silence, in which Carolina can hear only the crashing of the waves, the pounding of her own heart, and the rasp of Wash’s breath.

“Okay,” the sniper says. “I’m coming down. But if you so much as _move_ , I swear to god, the next one goes between your eyes.”

“Got it,” Carolina says.

She flips quickly to the shared Red and Blue TEAMCOM. “Captain Tucker, come in Captain Tucker, this is Carolina, please respond.”

Nothing but static returns.

 

She knows this one. Not well. One of York’s drinking buddies from back in the day. York stayed friendly with a lot of people on the lower squads after the rankings started. Wash and Connie too. She didn’t. Wasn’t interested in people who weren’t on her level. Illinois wasn’t the competitive type, York pretended not to be. Figures they got along.

“Can you walk?” she mutters to Wash over their private COM.

“Maybe,” Wash wheezes. Coughs once, and it’s enough to make terror coil in her stomach. “Not far.”

Illinois is striding toward them across the sand, rifle holstered now, pistol drawn. He keeps it trained on them, kneels by the pile of weapons, grabs Carolina’s pistol and ejects the magazine, taking it. His pistol arm is steady, but Carolina notices his other hand is shaking. He stares at them for a long moment. Carolina stares back, waiting.

She’s startled when Illinois lowers the weapon, comes around the other side of Wash, and shoves an arm under his shoulders. “Help me get him inside. _Hurry._ It’s not safe out here.”

 

“Tucker, come in,” Carolina hisses again over TEAMCOM. “Sarge, _anyone_ , if you are within range, please respond.”

Nothing. They’re on their own.

The shack is small but surprisingly clean, sparsely furnished with a hammock slung from the rafters, and a colorful woven rug spread on the floor. Nothing would reveal this rustic beach getaway for the hideout of a former special operative, save for the two footlockers shoved in the corners on opposite ends of the hammock. Repainted. No names on them that Carolina can see.

“Illinois,” she begins.

He shakes his head sharply. “Don’t use those names. They could be listening.”

“We’re on an encrypted channel.”

“It doesn’t matter. Don’t you understand? It doesn’t _matter,_ they can find you _anywhere—”_

“Okay,” Carolina says quickly. “Okay. Just tell me—what should I call you?”

Illinois sighs, and his shoulders sag a little. “Just Samir is fine.”

Carolina takes a deep breath. “Okay. Samir. Wash—David—he needs medical attention. The biofoam can only stabilize him temporarily, you know that.”

Samir sighs, moving restlessly from one foot to the other. “I know. I’m sorry. If you’re for real, I’m—I’m sorry.”

“Samir,” Carolina says carefully. Wash’s respiration is labored. His blood pressure is lower than normal, but stable for the moment. He’s alive, but whatever she says next, it has to be with the goal of getting them out of what looks a whole lot like a hostage situation, and getting him medical attention.

Never was good at negotiation. She thinks of Sharkface, gunned down in the streets of Armonia.

Not the time, Carolina. Lock that down.

“Samir,” she says. “Who did you think we were?”

Samir’s fingers are fidgety on his pistol. “You. Not you. I don’t know. Bad either way. You were supposed to be dead. You show up on the news years later with a bunch of sim troopers. _You_ —” he gestures at Wash with the pistol hand, his trigger discipline a lot less rigorous than Carolina would prefer, “were Recovery.”

Wash manages a weak facsimile of a chuckle. “Been a long time since I was called that.”

“Well, I was too. I know what that _means_.”

“What are you talking about?” Carolina says, trying to keep the impatience out of her voice.

But Wash groans softly.

“I didn’t kill them, Samir.”

“Wash, what—”

“Your squad, I didn’t… I didn’t kill them.”

“His squad…” Carolina says, baffled.

“Beta squad. We were all reassigned to Recovery after the Alpha mutiny, and…” Illinois laughs bitterly. “Wash knows.”

Wash gives a weak nod. “Most of them were the on the first response team at Valhalla.”

Carolina takes a minute to process that. “So they’re…”

“Dead,” Wash says hoarsely. His BP is actually still dropping, Carolina notes with dismay—very slowly, but it’s still dropping. “I recovered their bodies.” He swallows, coughs again. “I didn’t kill them, Samir. I swear. Others, yes, but not them. It was the Meta.”

Samir lets out a long breath. “Okay.”

“Why would you think Wash—”

Samir laughs harshly. “I _was_ Recovery, remember? Level Zero, _full recovery of the incident_ , all that happy horseshit. Li and I just wanted to get away from all that. Start a new life. That’s why we ran. Why we came here.”

“Li.”

Samir hesitates, then kneels. Draws two letters in the sand. RI. Rhode Island. Rho.

“We came out here together.” Samir’s voice chokes up, and he tenses all at once, looking from one of them to other. Swinging in the wind, Carolina thinks. Panicked and lost. _Alone_.

She knows the feeling intimately.

“You thought we were coming for you,” Carolina says in a low voice.

“I didn’t know,” Samir says heavily. “I couldn’t be sure. I don’t _know_ you anymore. You’re wild cards, both of you. Alpha Squad. Recovery. Dead, then alive. I didn’t know.”

“What,” Carolina says slow, deliberately, “happened, to Li?”

Samir’s shoulders sag. His arms drop to his sides. Finger off the trigger. Good.

“I went for one of my walks around the island, and when I came back, he was gone. His _armor_ was gone. He’d suited up, taken the boat. I found it drifting… It doesn’t make sense, we _never_ wore our armor anymore… and he went alone. Like something lured him out there. I know it sounds crazy, I…” He sags back against the wall, slides to the floor, head in one hand, the pistol still gripped in the other, his voice breaking. “I looked everywhere for him. _Everywhere_. He’s just gone. And now they’ll be coming for me, too. Maybe it is you. Maybe you’re just saying all this to get me to let my guard down, and then you take me, too.” He shudders, makes a sound like a sob. “At least tell me if Li’s dead, okay? That’s all I want to know. Just tell me if he’s dead.”

Carolina has been slowly, slowly, moving her hand across the floor.

She’s close enough to grab that pistol. It would take nothing, a fraction of a second. Get the jump on him, regain control.

She takes a deep breath, reaches out and touches his shoulder, gently.

“We didn’t take Li. We didn’t come to take you. But you’re right, someone did. Someone _is_ hunting us. You’re not crazy.”

Illinois looks up.

“We came to warn you,” Carolina says quietly. “See if you knew anything. I’m sorry we were too late for Li, Samir, I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking at her.

“Samir, Wash needs a medic. He _will_ die, if we don’t get him help. I know you don’t want that. I know you don’t want anyone else to die.”

The pause is agonizing. Wash’s breath is so loud in her ears.

“I can get up to the radio tower and call for help,” Samir says, finally.

I can go, Carolina doesn't say. I can get there faster. That would mean leaving Wash behind with Illinois. She believes his story, but she cannot trust that he won’t panic again.

She cannot let Wash out of her sight. Starting to regret letting _any_ of them out of her sight, but she will not make that mistake now.

“Okay,” she says. “We’ll stay right here. And Samir… I’m really sorry.”

“Yeah,” Samir says heavily, getting to his feet. “Me too.” He holsters his pistol. “I never did get your name.”

Carolina swallows. “MJ. Friends call me MJ.”

“MJ. Thanks.” Samir nods. “I’ll be back soon. It’s twenty minutes to the tower, fifteen back ‘cause it’s downhill. If I’m not…” He pauses in the doorway, looks over his shoulder at both of them in turn. “If I don’t make it back, you should run. I mean it.”

Carolina doesn’t answer that. Instead she finds Wash’s hand, gives it a squeeze. He returns it, weakly, but still there.

“Hurry back,” she says, and watches Illinois go.

**Author's Note:**

> Carolina lives. The fates of Wash and Illinois are left open-ended, though knowing Wash, he probably lives. Rhode Island is almost certainly dead.
> 
> Background pairing is Illinois/Rhode Island.


End file.
